


Fade Me Out

by westofwords



Category: Degrassi, Degrassi High, Degrassi Junior High
Genre: Gen, but he's thriving idk, check it out it's wheels core af, grief lots of grief, hi ao3 how r u, ments of parent death + a car crash, n he doesn't know how to cope, parts could be taken as vaguely suicidal thoughts, title comes from brother by Aaron Smith, wheels makes me sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-27
Updated: 2020-07-27
Packaged: 2021-03-06 01:42:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,017
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25545334
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/westofwords/pseuds/westofwords
Summary: Did he deserve to be happy anymore?
Comments: 2
Kudos: 9





	Fade Me Out

Every day was exactly like the last. In the weirdest and worst ways possible.

It was almost laughable, how everything had changed so suddenly overnight and now every hour - awake and asleep - was the exact same. Time moved slower, sometimes like it wasn't moving at all. Beat by beat, Wheels could recount his entire new "normal" routine.

Wake up early, sometimes too early, when the sun was still down. Usually it was being woken up, whether by some dream or something outside his window moving just slightly too loudly. Get up hours later, when the sun is up and he can hear his grandparents waking up. Sit. For hours. At the table, working up the will to eat. In the living room, staring at a blank TV or out the window. Sometimes he'd watch people walking outside, occasionally even being there early enough to see one of his classmates walking to school.

After hours of sitting, staring, and forcing out small replies to whatever his grandmother asked, even that would get to be too much. He'd lock himself back up in his room, the one semi safe space he had left anymore. Dozens of books he'd attempted to use as a distraction lay discarded on the floor. CDs and tapes were shoved into a drawer out of sight. Anything that used to make him happy was as far away as he could get it in the small room.

Did he deserve to be happy anymore?

One afternoon, he'd grown tired of it.

"I'm going out." He said plainly, jacket in his hand and half out the door already.

"Where?" His grandmother called back just in time.

"Just for a walk." And shut the door behind him before she could question further.

It was the truth. He couldn't stand one more second of being stuck in that house- he'd go crazy! The pictures of his parents smiling on every wall. Their clothes and belongings still scattered about the dining room table as his grandmother tried sorting out what to keep and what to give away. Every single thing in that house screamed their names and worse, screamed that they were never coming back.

Wheels didn't know what time it was exactly, but he knew he still had at least a couple hours until school would be letting out. The chances of running into any of his friends were low.

The entire walk he felt out of body. He was some ghost, watching his physical self moving rhythmically, robotically. Stopping at crosswalks, moving out of the way of people walking by. It all happened on its own.

He didn't pay attention to where he was walking. Besides, he wasn't worried about getting lost. He knew this town backwards with his eyes closed. But then why did everything feel so off? The storefronts looked foreign and the street names unfamiliar.

Everything was the same and yet everything was so different.

Everything was so different.

Wheels walked along the edge of the sidewalk, staring down at the asphalt of the road. His grandmother had refused to tell him where the crash happened. She said it was irrelevant and that it'd only make it more difficult to go back out and be around the town. He had places he thought might be it, but never asked.

As he stared down each stretch of road, it was hard not to imagine what it would have looked like if that was where it'd happened. 

A shard of glass here, a licence plate there. If the cars had skidded or if the collision stopped them exactly where it happened. Who was walking by and saw it all. Who was the first one to call the police. 

What if he'd been there too? What if he hadn't gone to Joey's... Would it still have even happened? What if he'd had to use the bathroom after the movie was over? Or if he wanted to stay through the credits to figure out if he knew any of the actors? What needed to happen for them to be just a couple minutes later? 

And what was it like right before? Maybe his mom told a joke and his dad laughed a bit too hard, not looking at the road for just a second. Maybe it was purely the other drivers fault.

He should've gone with them. Either he would've unintentionally done something to hold them back just a couple minutes or he would've died with them.

He'd rather that at this point. If they'd all died it'd be seen as a tragedy, sure, but then he wouldn't have to suffer through it alone. People would be able to move on. His grandparents were old, as horrible as it sounded, they wouldn't have to live with it for long. And his friends were young, they had their whole lives to move on and forget about 'the kid from junior high'. But how was he supposed to ever move on from this?

Two sets of parents in his life, double what any normal kid had, and they were both gone. Why was he still here? Why did he deserve to still be here?

The choking feeling of a sob was what brought him back to reality. He was still there, staring at some gutter on some street, blocks away from home.

He bit his tongue, shaking his head to try and clear any of those horrible thoughts that lingered. His cheeks felt hot and the back of his eyes stung, but he wouldn't cry.

Not in public especially, not at home either. 

To cry was to feel sorry for himself. He wasn't sorry. He was angry. He was lonely. Tired. Scared.

He didn't deserve this. He didn't deserve to lose them and he certainly didn't deserve to still be here without them.

He wanted everything to be normal again. He wanted to feel loved and safe again. If they had fights, it wouldn't matter. If they disagreed, they'd make up eventually.

He was just a kid. Kids need their parents and now that he needed them most, they were gone.


End file.
